Developers Tried to Flatten a Historic Forest for Condos—Until One Old Man Refused Every Check They Threw at Him
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Imagine living in a rural community, but over time, more and more people move in. Suddenly, you’re living in the suburbs, and there are developers knocking on your door offering you a lot of money to sell your land.
I can’t help but think of the Pixar movie “Up.” One old man refuses to sell his house, but there are buildings going up all around him.
That’s kind of what I picture when I picture the grandpa in this story, only he has much more land. He owns two acres of a forest, and money is not tempting him to sell at all.
Keep reading to see what the grandchild thinks about this situation.
My grandpa refuses to sell his back yard to developers.
Development has been taking over my home town.
It’s inevitable of course as a lot of people from major cities further up north are moving down here, but it’s sad at the same time seeing the fields and forests I used to play in growing up being paved over and turned into condominiums and strip malls.
It has also caused the cost of living to increase tremendously, in an area where many people are already struggling to stay a float, so as you can imagine, my grandfather, an old stubborn Dutch man who moved here and lived on this property since the 50s, has something to say about it.
OP’s grandfather is a holdout.
The street my grand father lives on used to be backed by a massive forest, but in recent years, developers have bought all of the forest and 90% of it has been torn down except for this one, small, probably 2 acre chunk of forest in the middle of this open field where my grandfather refuses to sell his land.
Of course this is bringing the developers plans to a halt as they can’t pave and build around this single chunk of forest, so all they can really do is wait for him to sell his land.
He has been in conflict with these developers for over a year now, and from my understanding, they are offering a lot of money.
OP has made a decision.
Well, knowing my grandfather, for as long as he stands on this earth, absolutely no amount of money will convince him to sell that land.
I know how frustrating this is for some people, specifically the developers who want nothing more than to throw up some cardboard houses and pocket close to a mill per, but I have decided that when my grandfathers time is up, I will continue his legacy and make sure that piece of land is never sold.
That is my petty revenge.
I like OP’s idea about how to continue his grandfather’s legacy.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person has a question.
Another person suggests talking to a lawyer.
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This person has a prediction.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a sister who feels badly about unknowingly encouraging her younger brother to play with bullies.
Another person quotes J.R.R. Tolkien.
I don’t blame his grandfather for holding onto his land. Sometimes, money really isn’t worth the tradeoff.
It would be a good idea for OP to talk to a lawyer to see what options they have to make it so that the land could legally never be sold to a developer.
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